


Pink Books and the Prospect of Youth

by Rose_Lattes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Coming of Age, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jester focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:42:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Lattes/pseuds/Rose_Lattes
Summary: While browsing a bookstore, Jester succumbs to the terrifying reality of growing up. Caleb is there to reassure her that people can be many versions and still be themselves.Written for Widojest Week. Day 4: Fairytale





	Pink Books and the Prospect of Youth

_As a child, Jester only had one bookshelf, and because of this, she only had a handful of books. But year after year, she would go through them and decide what stayed and what was given away, and each year she would give all of them away besides one._

It was common knowledge that time aged you, but Jester would dispute that by saying experience was the true culprit. During her time with the Mighty Nein, Jester had aged twenty years. Death was always near, always taking, always showing her how easy it could wrap her up and swallow her whole. It was terrifying, and Jester loved it for that. She loved _them_ for that.

The Mighty Nein, in all their forms, be it seven or eight, nine, or ten, were chaotic and colorful, but just as she touched them, they had touched her. Changed her. Every close encounter, every wrong word in tense company, aged her. She felt it in her bones. She is not the same child that left Nicodranas so many months ago, and while she was not foolish enough to believe youth was forever, she never expected maturity to come with such a _heaviness._

She sometimes worried that she was changing into someone her mother wouldn’t recognize. Jester’s development was not obvious to her, but when she spoke to her mother, she could hear it in her voice, the woman was concerned for her daughter’s well-being. Jester did not wish to cause her mom heartache with raw-voiced words or suspicious inquiries, but she could not pull herself away from the woman, so she would continue to contact her every chance she could, despite how crazed the messages were. 

Jester would take the startling realizations of the world, the heaviness of maturity, and the odd sense of isolation she had recently succumbed to, but she could not suffer the loss of her mother. For as long as Jester could remember, Marion was in her life. She was Jester’s constant, a blanket, a promise of ‘home,’ and Jester would continue to hold onto her as if her life depended on it. Like her _youth_ depended on it.

She did not want to grow up.

“49…50...51…” Caleb’s voice echoed throughout the shop. Each number was accompanied by the noise of a coin grinding against the shop keep’s countertop.

Jester took a deep breath and ran the palms of her hands down the fabric of her dress. She stood before a tall bookshelf with dusting shelves and a rainbow of cloth-clad spines. One title, in particular, captivated the tiefling. She did not reach out to touch it.

“Are you ready to go?” asked Caleb, suddenly at her side. He held two books in the crook of his arm, pressing them to his chest in a loose embrace.

Jester dug her toe into the shop’s fading rug and spun around. “Yes! Did you get what you were looking for?”

“Ah, I believe so.” Caleb’s eyes lit up, and she could feel his excitement waft off him in quick waves. She let the infectious energy take her far from where she once was, far from the book nestled within the shelf.

“What did you get?” she asked, leaning forward to try to read the titles herself.

“One is a collection of history reports.”

“And the other one?”

Caleb straightened up and cleared his throat. “A piece of fiction.”

“A piece of fiction,” Jester said with a teasing smile. “Like naughty fiction?”

“No,” Caleb drawled, letting the word drip from his mouth, counteracting Jester’s mischievous expression with a thin smile of his own. “I have learned my lesson.”

Jester laughed, but the noise felt vacant. To supplement the oddity of the sound, she quickly added, “You didn’t like my narration?”

“It wasn’t yours that bothered me,” he mumbled, moving to exit the aisle of bookshelves. “I simply never wish to hear Beau talk about nipple shapes, colors, sizes—”

“Perkiness,” Jester supplied.

“Perkiness, yes, I just never wish to hear her speak of any of them again,” Caleb finished with a humorous glance behind his shoulder. Jester had not moved. She remained planted between the walls of books. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice falling back into a soft-spoken state.

Jester frowned in exaggerated confusion. “Yes, of course.” She was loud, much louder than she intended, and she knew she had blown whatever cover she had left. A small laugh, nervous and fragmented, tingled her lips. “Why do you even need to ask?”

“Because you aren’t following me,” Caleb monotonously said. He stared at her with an open expression.

Jester began to shake her head. Her hair tickled the top of her shoulders. It had gotten far longer than what she liked, but between the long days in-between towns and the weight of her body, she could not take it upon herself to trim her locks. “I was just waiting for you to be _sure_ you don’t want anything else in the store. I really don’t feel like coming back. This place is so far away from our house; I wouldn’t want to come _all_ the way out here, my feet already hurt really hurt.”

Jester was bad at hiding herself, especially when probed. Most people took her surface face as fact, but time after time, Caleb showed her that he was not _most people_. He pried, and Jester often found herself enjoying his investigations. It felt like a healthy stretch, guided by Caleb’s uncritical voice. But not today.

Caleb narrowed his eyes, and Jester knew her excuses were all for naught. “Jester, what is going on?”

Her heart burned, blistered her chest, and scalded her throat. Jester ran her hands down her dress and looked to her dirty boots. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing is wrong.”

Strands of brown hair escaped Caleb’s messy bun as he tilted his head to the side. He leaned against the bookshelf, using his body to block the entryway of the aisle. “Jester,” he said softly.

“There is this book,” she answered as if it explained it all. When Caleb did not respond, she picked her head up and faced the dusting shelf. She did not wish to stretch, stretching resulted in growth, and she had done more growing than she was comfortable with already. “They have this book that I recognize.” She extended her hand and pointed to the faded pink spine. Her fingertip hovered over its gold title.

“Would you like me to buy it for you?” Caleb asked, confused by Jester’s trepidation.

Jester was about to shake her head but realized she couldn’t answer it with a simple no. “It was my favorite story growing up. A fairytale.” She kept her words short, not wanting to give too much, but she knew she was still giving the man too little to comprehend, so as much as it hurt, she continued. “The story is about a girl, a girl with cute hair and lots of jewelry, and all she wants to do is go for a little walk.” She looked to Caleb, fearful and rigid. Her jaw clenched, and she forced it back open. “A little walk around her village. Her parents don’t trust her to go alone. They say that young girls look too kind. That the world is not meant for young girls.” Despite her best efforts, tears breach the surface of her lavender sprinkled eyes. “One day she’s playing in the yard, and a wagon breaks down in front of her house. A wizard gets out of the wagon, and he asks her for help. Her parents don’t let her talk to strangers, so she simply watches him. The wizard says, ‘I am in quite a hurry, I have many important people waiting for me, I have some spare gold to give.’ The girl shakes her head.” Jester mimed the movement with a pained expression.

“The wizard asks if there is anything else he can give her for a spare spoke, and she points to herself. ‘Turn me into something else, something not young, not a little girl,’ she said. The wizard grants her wish and turns her into a middle-aged woman with rags for clothes and wrinkles, and she runs into their barn and gives him his spare spoke. After he leaves, she decides where she wants to go, and she can’t truly decide, so she goes everywhere. She wanders the village, and when she is tired and done with her walk, she goes home, but her parents don’t open the door for her. They can’t recognize her.”

Caleb watched her with a gentle gaze, and Jester smiled awkwardly. “Realizing her mistake, she rushes into town, and tracks down the wizard with the spare spoke on his cart. She tells him, begs him, to change her back and he does. With the snap of his fingers, she is a little girl again.” A shaky breath shuddered beneath Jester’s breastbone, but no more tears came. “She ran home, and her parents let her in, and they enjoyed a nice dinner, and they lived _happily ever after_.” Jester’s voice diminished into a squeaky whisper.

“This story obviously means very much to you,” Caleb said, shifting on his feet as he licked his lips in further thought. “But, Jester, that is not you.”

“I know it’s not me,” Jester said, truth melted her eyes and opened her heart. “It isn’t me. Because she was able to change back.”

“Do you want to change back?” Caleb asked.

The question was raw and oh so heavy, and Jester crumbled. “I don’t know, Caleb. I don’t know if I can.”

“Why would you think you couldn’t?” Caleb took a step forward, craning his neck down to meet her eyes. “Everybody can change, backward or forwards. You don’t need a wizard to cast a spell on you. You just need you.”

Jester’s lips quivered. What did she want? “Does it get any easier?” she asked softly. Caleb’s mouth pulled up into that sad smile of his, and she elaborated, “Growing up?”

“No.” The brutal truth was what she wanted, but it only added to her heartache. Pressing his shoulder blades together, Caleb stood straighter. “But you get stronger.”

Jester placed her hand on the shelf’s ledge, holding herself steady as a wave of emotions tackled her. “It’s so hard. _Molly_. _Yasha_. _The war._ ”

“I know,” Caleb cooed. He placed his free hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to him with a raw fear she reserved only for the Traveler. “But we are here for you. _I_ am here for you. That fairytale you love so much? It is a testament to what is possible.”

“What if once we go home, my mom doesn’t recognize me?”

Caleb recoiled with a playful scowl. “That’s not possible. You’re the most identifiable woman I have ever met.” His eyes softened as he sobered. He ran his thumb over the shoulder of her dress, caressing the fabric with gentle pressure. “Your mother understands what the outside world does. She will not blame you if you come back with edges. But, she _will_ blame you if you never return.” Like a soft shell, Caleb broke. Something in his eyes shifted, and he gently nodded. “I can tell she loves you very much. There is nothing you can do to change that.” He tore his hand from her; his fingers shook, knuckles bouncing against one another.

Jester trusted his words, and she closed the gap between them to give him a firm hug. “Thank you, Caleb.” She felt him continue to shake, so she squeezed him once before pulling back.

Caleb smiled down at her, the expression was sad and small. His eyes dashed up to the shelf. “Are you sure you do not want me to buy it for you.”

The story was a reminder of their conversation, a relic of her youth and guide to her future. She knew the story from cover to cover, but having the physical item would grant her comfort. Perhaps, she did not need a wizard to cast a spell on her before she headed home, but she had the vague suspicion he had already done so. The weight was lifted, not completely gone, but it no longer smothered her. She smiled. “I think I will get it.” She retrieved the pink novel from the shelf, its neighboring books tilted from its absence. Caleb moved to fetch his coin purse from his pocket and Jester lit up. “I will pay, it’s okay!”

Brushing his hair out of his face, Caleb looked to her innocently. “Are you sure? I have more than enough.”

They were running late as it was, and Jester couldn’t help but grin. She touched his arm, halting his movement. “You’ve done more than enough, Caleb,” she said before exiting the aisle.


End file.
